A relief carving of a naked man at the UN’s Geneva headquarters was
covered up on Monday, apparently to spare the blushes of Iranian
diplomats ahead of fresh talks on the country’s nuclear drive.

UN officials would not comment on why the wall relief, inspired by
Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”, had been masked by a large white
screen, referring questions to the Swiss authorities.

But Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve claimed that the aim was to
avoid offending the Islamic republic’s delegation for the talks taking
place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Iranian
men are expected to cover their arms and legs in public, with women
further obliged to cover their hair and wear loose clothing in line with
the hardline interpretation of Islam endorsed by powerful clerics in
the country.

Donated by Britain to the UN’s forerunner the League of Nations in
1938, the larger-than-life reclining figure was sculpted by Eric Gill,
and tops the entrance to the building’s Council Chamber where the talks
are due to take place.

Swiss officials declined to address the newspaper’s claim, telling
AFP that the aim was to provide a neutral backdrop at the entrance to
the meeting hall.

Although the talks are to take place in the UN’s 1930s-era Palace of Nations, the world body is not their official host.

Instead, Switzerland was asked to organise the meeting by the
so-called P5+1 group made up of the five permanent UN Security Council
members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus
Germany.

Comments

United Nations covers up Michelangelo’s sculpture to appease Iranian diplomats

More likely they were protecting the work of art from the savages. Art, offensive to misanthropes.

And I don't think it was the nudity that the Islamic supremacists found offensive, but the religious significance of Michelangelo's work to the Christian world.